Defying Destiny (Afterword Academy #3) - Katie May Page 0,45

spot to place a bench. It’s peaceful here. Relaxing. Here, I could get lost for hours, forgetting all my troubles, leaving my anger behind, listening to the steady trickle of the water and the rustling of the leaves above me.

My eyes lose focus as I stare into the stream, and I aimlessly toe a rock by my foot. Remembering how my brothers and I would try and skip rocks as kids, I reach down and pick up the stone. It’s small and flat, the perfect skipping stone. Standing up, I turn to my left and face the straight area of the stream, then rear my hand back and throw the stone in a sidewinding fashion.

To my delight, it skips four times before sinking into the water. Smiling to myself, I sit back down and just stare into the stream. But to my surprise, the stone I just threw comes skipping back down the water at me.

“What the…”

Almost like life just rewound itself, the rock jumps from the water and nestles just under my foot where it was just before I threw it.

Fear snakes up my spine, my entire body growing cold. Picking up the rock, I look at it, expecting it to look different than all the others. I gaze down at the water like it’s personally offended me, when something stirs in the shallows.

At first, I think it’s my eyes playing tricks on me, but as the water darkens, the bottom no longer in sight, I know something is going on.

Terror slams into me as a gaping maw forms just below the surface. A silently screaming mouth with hundreds of jagged teeth gnash, bleeding gums and rotten flesh visible. I’m frozen to the spot as the mouth rises, along with the haunting body it’s attached too.

Like a mutated zombie from the scariest horror movie, a pale figure emerges. Thin and naked with pale, spindly limbs and a head composed only of a mouth… Are these the Verniquin that Braxton and Preston fought?

Yellow boils are strewn down its body, seemingly ready to burst and spray its infection all over the place. Then it roars, a haunting, supernatural sound that causes my blood to freeze.

When its arms reach for me, more mouths filled with fangs for its hands, I remember how to move and leap onto the bench, before jumping behind it. The creature follows but doesn’t run. Instead, it meanders after me, stumbling through the trees and tall grass.

A grunt lodges in my throat as I make it out of the woods and back into Hadley’s backyard. Turning back, I pull my arrow out and nock it, aiming it at the lumbering beast. But as he breaches the tree line, my blood runs cold because behind him must be a dozen more.

I can’t fight this many alone. Besides, I need to warn the others. Still, I turn loose my arrow as I back up and turn to face the house. I move to fly, bending my legs and leap into the air only to crash back down onto the ground.

Fuck, I don’t have my wings.

A sense of urgency compels my limbs to move. I need to warn them, to warn my Hadley. I’m so angry with myself when I crash into the backdoor, only to find it locked. Growling, I rush to the front of the house, immediately regretting my decision. Because lumbering towards the house are thousands of Hell’s creatures.

Boils bursting right and left, the creatures sometimes attack each other in a frenzy of blood, flesh, and bone.

“Auston!”

Spinning back, I see Preston waving me back inside, and I rush towards him, slamming the door shut behind me.

“Get to Hadley!” I shout. He backs up, his spine crashing into the wall, before turning and sprinting up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I follow quickly as the monsters crash into the door, splintering it. As the first monster squeezes inside, I back up the stairs.

Relief floods me when I find all three of my brothers at the top. But as the monsters climb the stairs and I begin firing at them with my bow and arrows, I realize this is a fight we can’t win.

There are too many of them.

“Get into Hadley’s room!” I shout, hitting as many of them as I can. Some fall, some explode, and some just become angrier.

Hadley stares back at me, pale and sweaty, terror inscribed all over her face from where she sits on her bed. Braxton is curled around her, his